Last Blog of 08

I just realized how long it has been since I blogged. It kinda reminds of that old adage "a day without blogging is like a day without sunlight" that I just made up right now. Also, I may have completely misused the word "adage". That being said, there's a new puppy that lives with me now. His name is Andre and he is already the star of a hit music video.



If you don't believe that Andre's first music video is a hit, maybe you should read up about it on Edward Mendoza's Blog. Granted, I'm not really sure who Edward Mendoza is, but you can bet your butt I'm gonna be readin' his blog regularly. I'm hoping to get more shout-outs in his blogs as well.

The new year is just around the corner, and I have desperately been trying to think of really great and original New Year's Resolutions. Here is what I got so far...

- Obviously GET BIG in 2009, with the help of Punchline and Whistle Pig.

- Stop wearing hats, although this would require a cool haircut, which I have not had since about 1992.

- Update my blog as much as Kasey McIntyre (seen below) updates his twitter (probably a pipe dream).



- Post 365 youtubes in 365 days.

- Continue to never lose to Sarah at Scrabble

- Continue to only occasionally beat Sarah at Find The Mii on Wii Play, and maybe also beat Arctic Tale

- Teach Andre to Freestyle Dance (aka Put On The Ritz) with help from page 111 of "The Complete Guide to Mutts"

I also finally got an Ipod Touch from my Mom and Dad for Christmas. It is a big step up from my MP3 player from the year 2002. I vow to not put any bad songs on it. Some of the best songs on it so far are probably T*Baby's "Its So Cold in the D" and the karaoke version of Jermaine Stewart's "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off". Good start!

Also finished up Season 5 of Sopranos last night. *Spoiler Alert* I can't believe Adriana got whacked! She had it coming I guess. I'm looking forward to the final 20 episodes.

I'll leave you all with one last completely amazing picture of the animal I live with now.

Charleston Chew

I had a great time playin' bass tonight in Charleston, WV. I also had a great time calling out Rishi from the Spacepimps multiple times about hitting "not attending" on my event invitation for the Whistle Pig Stimulus Package download. It was real fun and semi-awkward. The Steelers won the AFC North and we were all happy about that. We had a great time playing music tonight. I got everyone to stomp at one point, and I assume they were doing it but I'm not completely sure. Here is a picture I took during the set by whipping out the ol' Macbook onstage...



I also made a really great Video Blog today at Arby's with my good buddy Nightbeast. Here it is.



Here is a picture of me hangin' out with my buddies the other day.



And here is the person I'm going to be hanging out with in about 3 hours, and I'll probably have on my video blog this week!



I am looking forward to a visit this weekend from my good buddy Tony Hartman, and possibly also Whistle Pig cover artist Justin Will. We'll definitely watch Latin Spring Break (if I can find it), play some Wii, go to the Guys Next Door show, and film many Whistle Pig commercials.

I'm bloggin' all over the place now.

Indy 5 Million

I am sitting "backstage" in a basement of a church in Indianapolis. I am going to be playing bass here tonight, obviously! Tonight is PJ's birthday, and I got him the gift that keeps on giving...a video blog!



Its nearing the end of the year, and I need to start making my "best of" and "worst of" lists for 2008. Here are some of my decisions.

Best flavor of '08 - Pomegrante

Worst restaurant of '08 - Buffalo Wild Wings (ya know, BW3s for all you people who don't realize there are only 2 Ws)

Restaurant that made the best comeback in my opinon of '08 - Steak N' Shake

Worst category of '08 - That last one

Best purchase of '08 - Macbook Pro

Worst purchase of '08 - 6 DVDs for 20 bucks off of Mark Feinagle at the Flea Market in which 2 of the DVDs had burnt DVDs of the wrong movies inside of them and 2 of them didn't work because they were too scratched

Best gift of '08 - Dolphin blanket

Best adverb that Belan uses incorrectly on a daily basis of '08 - "ironically"

Worst food of '08 - pickles, of course

I'll think of more favorites and non-favorites later. I should probably be watching this very out-of-tune band cover a Silverstein song right now. Happy birthday PJ, I know how you're always readin' my blog!

I'm sitting up in the hotel room in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'd like to see those rapids and see how really grand they are. I am of course listening to Tha Carter III album that came in the Whistle Pig Stimulus Package. We had a fun show tonight. I'm really happy that I talked about buck knives on stage tonight. My favorite thing to do now is read reviews of buck knives on Cabelas.com. I especially like when people talk about knives cutting through deer like butter, and also details about being up the elbows in guts!

Sarah and I saw a really great episode of Saved By The Bell today, in which Mr. Belding's brother Rod comes and teaches the class. Everyone thinks he's a really cool dude, but he really isn't. Sarah and I also have been making chicken noises at each other lately, and I gotta say that it feels really good. I love letting out a real great BA-GAWWWWK every once in a while. I'm also really into this youtube today.



I also made a few Youtubes in the past few days, and both are obviously incredible.
First of all, here is a passage from Whistle Pig that will make your toes curl.



And of course I made this amazing tube of our Pre-Thanksgiving Christmas Party!



I'm looking forward to going to Detroit tomorrow and singlehandedly saving the auto industry.

Christmas Bloggin'

Last night we got our Christmas on bigtime. Sarah and I made many great foods such as pumpkin dip, which I gotta say was the hit dip of the party. I like providing the hit dip. Here is only part of the spread...

I made some really great "wassel" too. I could really go for a cup of wassel right now while I blog. My favorite thing about wassel (other than the taste) is the name "wassel". Here is a picture of me and my good buddy The Sneak looking very above-averagely cool...

Here are some pictures of guys looking very below-averagely cool...

This morning I woke up from a dream that I was in Scotland with my friend Ed Sellers and he told us what to name our new album. I'm pretty sure that we'll probably name our new album "Delightfully Pleased" because of this dream.

I was most definitely delightfully pleased with the good time I had last night. Here are some more pictures, I hope you all enjoy the great moose eating a shrimp.

Blogic.

Here are some pictures of my new band that I will be playing in starting (and ending) on November 28th.

DJ Ezzo spinnin' (as usual)

Droppin' the beat to kill.

Representin' PRIMETIME screenprintin'

Obviously if you don't like my new band, I'll laugh in your face. Oh yeah, and check out our bio.

Logic is a Hip-Hop/Hardcore band based out of Pittsburgh Pa. Since Logic formed in late 1996, they have been gaining added respect from fans and fellow bands in the Pittsburgh underground music scene. Bringing a variety of musical backgrounds together under one common goal is never an easy task, but Logic creates a melee of music that has since been unheard of. Logic's music has strong influences from hardcore, hip-hop, metal, punk, and anything else they can pick up along the way. Although their style is diverse, it never compromises its heavy groove or its appeal to Logic's ever-faithful fan base.

Since the release of their debut CD, "Straight Up Chaos", in May of 1998, Logic has enjoyed a host of great reviews and extensive touring in Pennsylvania and throughout West Virginia, Ohio, and New York. Da' Core magazine (Pittsburgh) says, "These guys kick hip-hop/hardcore that closely rivals national acts like Downset and Dog Eat Dog. Being as young and talented as they are right now, I can't imagine what will come out of these guys in the future. They are a definite find for any label that wants to grab a new young band."

In the past year, Logic has worked its way into the close-nit family of the Pittsburgh heavy music scene. Playing shows with Pittsburgh best hardcore bands and opening for national acts such as Biohazard, Clutch, System of a Down, Face to Face, Candiria, Straight Faced, and Shutdown has helped Logic develop their style as well as their infamous live show. In the next few years, Logic plans to continue touring and spreading its musical message to all who will accept it. With another CD slated for release sometime in the summer of 1999, Logic will certainly continue to give the music scene and its fans all it can give at every show. Logic is currently in search of an established record label to help with their next album and to help them gain more exposure on the national level.

 

LOGIC

707 Fayette Ave.

Belle Vernon Pa. 15012

logic724@hotmail.com

http://members.tripod.com/Logic724

We are leaving Boston (Beantown) now and driving 10 hours toward our great hometown of Belle Vernon, PA. Beantown provided us with a great show filled with great friends. It feels good to hear people sing along to your songs...that most definitely never gets old. I played my second show in a row wearing glasses. I'm practically Rivers Cuomo at this point, except I'm the Rivers Cuomo of bass. If I was a fisherman wearing these same glasses, I'd be the Rivers Cuomo of bass (different pronunciation). I love when the same word has different pronunciations and meanings based on context. Here's a good example of a sentence that would surely confuse someone trying to learn the English language: "I live for seeing bands play live". I'd really appreciate if someone could leave me a comment letting me know what those kinds of words are called. I should seriously know this because I did very well in English. You wouldn't know it by some of my run-on sentences and dangling propositions in some of my past blogs though! 

The Years Gone By and Let's Get It were both good bands and good guys. It was nice sharing the past 5 days with them. I also really appreciate all the people that came out to the shows over the past couple weeks. I really think we need to do a good support tour though. Someone call Jimmy Eat World and tell them to put us on their Clarity tour! Oh man, could you even imagine? We decided the other day that one of the worst bands out there is "Default".  Pomegrante flavored drinks are my favorite. I'm getting off on a tangent here. Here are some pictures from tonight

This guy had marker on his face for some reason, you can't see it in the picture though.

Some nice people in Beantown who enjoy the blog!

My good buddy Matt, I'm gonna check out his songs in a minute.

Another good buddy named Matt. The other guy in the picture is some guy named "PJ".

Tour picture...all looking off to the side, and kinda blurry. Perfect!

The Blog Days of Winter

I am once again sitting at one of my favorite places to blog - behind the merch table. I'm thinking we need to start selling merch items that no other band has, like maybe some coffee mugs and lava lamps. I also bet that people would buy Punchline stuffed animals. We should have a little Build-A-Bear Workshop on our merch table. I think people would be into that. I also woke up this morning dead seriously thinking that I should run for President in 2016. I figured if I started my campaign in 2009, that would give me a good 7 years of campaigning. I'm hoping that by then all incriminating videos and youtubes of me will be deleted as well. I started a text file today of ideas for my book about what I'd do as President. I also wrote a poem about what I'd do as Prez in Whistle Pig that will out in January. That will give people a little introduction as to what I plan to do, but in my full book they'll really know my plans. I guess that in the next 7 years I'd also have to run for some offices so that people can't claim that I'm inexperienced. Maybe I'll try to be the mayor of Belle Vernon. That would be pretty sweet, I'd have SO many parades on Broad Avenue and also really try to pass legislation to bring a Taco Bell to BV.

After tonight's show, we'll be making a late night drive up to Boston because we have a show there that starts at 1:00 in the afternoon. I always enjoy Beantown, and I also always enjoy calling it Beantown. My favorite beans would probably be Baked Beans, followed closely by French Cut Green Beans. My middle school shop teacher's nickname was "Beans" as well. My Uncle Gus also once told me a story about a guy named Beans giving him shit. Beans wasn't too happy about Uncle Gus throwing him in the puddle though. The funny part was that Beans' Uncle Hippo watched the whole thing and didn't do shit.

Fun with Photobooth in New Hampshire

I was inspired to take photobooth pictures with many nice people in New Hampshire tonight. I am still at the show and sitting behind the merch table. I think tonight will be a great show, judging by the friendly people I have met so far tonight. I am looking forward to the Roast Beef sub that Belan is bringing me back from Subway. I think its going to be delicious. Here are the pictures...

That's all I got for now.

I love penguins, especially baby ones.

I woke up this morning to go eat a DELICIOUS continental breakfast at my favorite place to eat continental breakfast - the Super 8 lobby. Of course I couldn't resist the individually packaged bagels and muffins, so I went ahead and had one of each. I also had a styrofoam cup full of ultra-sugary cherry Kool-aid. I think everything tastes just a little bit better when you drink it out of styrofoam. The taste of the Kool-aid reminded me of the smell of the new shampoo I started using...Suave Kids 2 in 1. It smells like magical candy. I also love the fish listening to an Ipod on the front of it! (Although I'm pretty sure that in this picture I found of it on the internet, the fish has chosen to leave his Ipod at home.)

Yesterday at the show, I found myself enjoying the music of the opening bands while looking at pictures of baby penguins on the internet. I would definitely have to say that baby penguins are the coolest baby animals, which is probably what spawned that urban legend about the kid going to the zoo and stealing a baby penguin and bringing it home in his/her backpack. Of course I talked about looking at pictures of baby penguins on stage as well, which I think is much better stage banter than going up there and talking about such trivial things as "our new album". Its DEFINITELY better than going on stage and talking about your band's myspace page, and how everyone in the crowd should go "check it out!" At every show that we play, at least one band ends their set by going "Thanks a lot everybody! We're So-And-So! Check out our myspace...www.myspace.com/so-and-so!!!" I am glad that we don't end our sets with URL addresses. I am also glad that this gorgeous baby penguin is now the desktop background on my computer...

We are going to New Hampshire now, a state of which I only have one strong memory. In the summer of 2005, we were on tour with Reel Big Fish and we played at Hampton Beach. My good buddy Trevor and I were looking forward to hanging out on the beach and playing guitar in the sand. We headed down there after we loaded in, acoustics in hand. He began to teach me how to play an awesome song he wrote called "Too Close", but before he could finish, a very drunk man kept insisting that we play some Pearl Jam. Then it started to rain. That being said, here's Trevor playing at the college I graduated from.

I'd rather be blogging.

Now that I have internet everywhere I go and also a totally kickass new computer, I'm very glad that I can blog from everywhere that I go. Today I'm blogging straight from a couch in the back of a place called "Billy Baloney's" in Danbury, Connecticut. If it wasn't for my dedication to playing the bass, I'd probably never have been in Billy Baloney's, let alone Danbury. I'm glad that this place is named after a really great Pee-Wee character.

I spent 26 dollars today, and I don't have much to show for it. I spent 6.95 on a turkey sandwich at a rest stop today, which seemed ridiculously overpriced, but I absolutely could NOT let myself stoop to eating ROY ROGERS (quite possibly the worst of all fast-food restaurants!) I also bought myself a Hershey bar with almonds (mmm) and a copy of the new Time magazine with the new prez on the cover because my subscription just ran out. I had a magazine subscribing phase this past year, and I learned my lesson pretty well. Here is my list of good and bad magazines:

Good:

Mental Floss (my favorite magazine, of course)

Time

Nintendo Power

Bad:

Entertainment Weekly

Sports Illustrated (mainly because my subscription spanned the length of the Olympics and baseball season, my 2 least favorite sporting events)

Bass Player (I mainly subscribed to this so I could set it on my coffee table to humorously make my friends think that I love reading about bass playing)

I'm real glad that Sarah decided to start blogging as well. You can check her blog out over in my list of links on the side of this blog. Its worth checking out, especially for her great picture of her dog King. I think after she blogs ten times, I'm going to buy her a domain name (the gift that keeps on giving!)

Tony and I really started getting the word out about Whistle Pig today. I really think that our book is going to change the way people look at the world. I also think its gonna change the way people look at groundhogs, gnomes, hitchhikers, well-water, and zebras. I also think that its pretty amazing that David Wain did a reading of "Pregnant Guys" for us. What a great and cool famous guy. As soon as I get as famous as David Wain, I am surely going to be that cool to people trying to aspire to be as cool as me.

I'm hoping to get to hang with my bud Greg Wood tonight after the show. Here is the coolest youtube that Greg Wood and I probably ever made.

Rochestering.

I'm sitting behind the merch table with Belan right now in Rochester, NY. We are listening to "Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover" by Sophie B. Hawkins very loudly so that everyone around us gets to enjoy it as much as we are. I'm taking a break from listening to "So Cold in the D" for the first time today, what a great song that I discovered in Michael Ireland from IATA's blog! I hope that some people discover great songs and youtubes from my blog as well. I think I need to get the word out about my blogging more, so that someday I can sit and blog at political events (which obviously would be a dream come true). Sarah almost got a blog yesterday, but then she completely wimped out when it was time to pick a username. I'd definitely like to read Belan's blog if he had one. I'd also like to read his book someday when he writes one. It will be awesome because he can document his entire life...he definitely told us that he can remember being 1 year old and having his diaper changed the other day. I wish I could remember being 1. Belan is now playing the piano, and that's another thing that Belan can do that I wish I could do. Dude is seriously an awesome pianist.

I noticed lately that Steve has been wearing blazers a lot. 

The dude sitting next to me doing merch for another band is the most antisocial person ever. I asked him if he likes the new Jimmy Eat World and he gave me a look like he never heard of Jimmy Eat World. To get back at him, I listened to "So Cold in the D" at full blast. Hopefully he's downloading it right now on his Iphone.

Well, here's me tearin' it up.

Let's Give 'Em Somethin' To Blog About

I have become quite the early morning blogger. I spent an extra night sleeping on the floor due to an unforeseen blizzard in Michigan last night. Luckily, the Best Western had a much more comfortable floor than the Super 8 we stayed at for the past 2 nights. Someday when I'm rich I'll get a cot and bring it with me to all hotels! I'll also hire someone to carry my cot around. I'll be creating a cot-carrier job, doing my part to help the economy.

You would think that with all the skills and titles I've acquired that I should have at least a billion dollars by now! I was trying to figure out a list of them in the shower (but the paper kept getting wet), so I'll list them here...

- bass player

- back-up singer

- scrap metal yard worker

- forklift operator

- youtube creator

- video director

- blogger

- video blogger

- above average ice skater

With the Jaunary 2009 release of me and Tony's masterpiece "Whistle Pig", I'll also be able to add the following to that list...

- writer

- author

- cartoonist

- poet

- fableizer (a word I just made up, it means "one who writes fables")

These are some of my past skills that I would need to brush up on to really still consider a current skill or title....

- ice hockey goaltender

- landscaper

- guy who untangles ridiculous piles of mining cable

- soda pop shelf stocker at Pechin's

I'll get that cot, just you wait and see.